Getting Things Done

Are you starting up your own business and are so overwhelmed with work that you are getting stuck? Are you employed and juggling many different projects at the same time? Aren’t we all just struggling to get things done that we had setup in our mind to do and either just procrastinate or give up?

Now there is the theory out there that if you are passionate about something that you will actually get it done. So a lot of it comes down to you deciding which things to do and which things to leave out. What I find incredibly valuable is to set myself daily, weekly, monthly and annual targets. Often times I find that I over-estimate what I can do within a day but under-estimate what I can do in a month.

What does help is to have a daily routine where you take 10 minutes either before you go to bed, if you are a night person, or just when you get up, if you are a morning person to do the following

Reflect and be grateful for what you have

Envision the next 24 hours and how you want to feel at the end of those 24 hours

Decide 3 big hairy scary things you want to get done

Prioritize on your list, using a productivity tool

Doing those quick steps will make you start out with an unbelievably long list of ideas and things you will want to do in your day, week, month or year. But by doing them repeatedly you will start prioritizing your work, life, playing and learning around the things that really matter to you.

In order to get to that prioritized list there are a few key productivity tools out there that are helpful to accomplish this feat. Personally I would recommend either Asana or Remember the Milk (I have tried many other tools and am constantly on the hunt for the next big thing).

Choosing between the two really comes down to

Do you need to work in a team, family or group and assign tasks that require “conversations” to go along with the tasks. Asana is right for you

Do you want flexibility and manage tasks in different dimensions. Remember the Milk is right for you

Personally I have made the choice to stick with Remember The Milk after using it for five years by now. The main reason is that I love to organize things around “tags”. Often times I find myself needing to thing of tasks by different dimensions.

Are they work or personal related?

Do they need to be executed while I am in Switzerland or Iceland?

Are they linked to a specific category (e.g. Shopping, Movies I want to see, particular projects)

That way I have built my tag cloud along those three dimensions and that has gotten me through life quite nicely in the last years.